Name: Lin Tao Yin / Lin Tao Yang
Codename: Yin / Yang
Age: 18 (Tao Yin looks a little younger)
Date of Birth: January 3rd, 1994
Height: 5'3" / 5'8"
Weight: 112 lbs / 144 lbs.
Hair Color: Varies / Black
Eye Color: Very dark gray, almost black.
Place of Origin: Born in Korea, Raised in Maine
Nationality/Race: Korean American
Classification/Origin of Powers: Mutant / Mystical
Status: Resident
Occupation: College Student
Personality Profile:
Tao Yin: Generally energetic, but quick to ire if things aren't going her way. She is not malicious, but
does seem a bit self-interested. Almost like she's living a second childhood. Contrary to this she has very
little survival instinct, often making the more dangerous choices the ones she goes for on a whim.
Tao Yang: Much more mature, and good-natured. Often fatigued. Willing to help pretty much anybody with
whatever they need, as long as he's capable of helping. Contrary to his other half, he tends to take the safer
option if presented one in a conflict.
Physical Description: See Pictures.
Tao Yin
Tao Yang
---------------------------------
Powerset: Duality. Balance. Yin and Yang. Darkness and Light.
Ability One: Duality - More of a curse than a power. Tao has two sides, Yin and Yang. Yin is female
while Yang is male. Each have very distinctive traits and personalities, as well as completely different
talents and powers. This duality has some side benefits though. Mainly, it makes telepathic invasion immensely
difficult, as two subconcious minds war for control in the background of their chaotic mess of memories and
thoughts. Peering into their mind is like seeing a slideshow of images flash by at 60 frames per second, with
each frame being a different image or thought. Long-term memory is so deeply hidden by this chaos that it takes
immense amounts of effort to push beyond and sort through the mess to find what one is looking for. Surface
thoughts are dominated by the current mind in control, and are much easier to read.
Ability Two: Aspect of Darkness - Yin has the ability to manipulate and emit areas of shadow and
darkness. At it's most basic this allows Yin to see without any source of light at all. The rest is limited to a
close range of thirty feet for the shaping and manipulation of existing darkness, or a thirty foot radius for the
emission of a new source of darkness. If focused and concentrating, Yin can slip from one shadow to the next, as
long as it is within thirty feet and within line of sight, but she cannot take anyone with her or any large held
objects.
Ability Three: Aspect of Light - Yang has the ability to manipulate and emit areas of light, ranging
from dim candlelight to the brightness of open daylight. The most basic effect of this ability is that he is not
subject to penalties from bright flashes or prolonged exposure to extreme bright light. He is currently only
capable of consistantly emitting a thirty foot radius of light, as dim or bright as he needs. If focused not
moving otherwise, he can focus the light through the palms of his hands as a brief beam of concentrated light,
effectively producing a quick-shot laser. Currently this is not powerful enough to burn through any sorts of
metal, but plastics and fabrics are fair game (as well as unprotected skin, of course). A trick he has developed
with the light manipulation aspect is to blink out nearby light bulbs (limited to the same 30 foot range as
everything else), but only two at a time, one for each hand.
Drawbacks & Weaknesses: The Duality ability is not one that Tao can control. During the day, Yin
(female, Darkness) is in control, and during the night Yang (male, Light) is in control. Curiously, the mystical
interferance in Tao's mutant genes has made it impossible to suppress this mutation. The introduction of an SND
to the mix complicates things even further, reversing the transformations while the device is active.
The SND will of course nullify or limit the use of Darkness and Light control as normal.
Focusing on the beam of light will quickly exhaust Tao Yang. The more tired he is, the less bright his
light is capable of being.
This also unfortunately is a tell-tale sign for intruders as to when he may wake up, since he glows when
he sleeps. If he's dim at night he's still deep asleep. The brighter he gets, the more likely he is to wake up.
The focus required to slip from shadow to shadow is also very taxing for Tao Yin. This does not manifest
as fatigue, but in very focused migraines centered in the area of the brain controlling motor function. The more
she uses this focused ability, the worse the headache gets. The worse the headache gets, the harder it is to
focus!
Skills:
Tao Yin:
- Practiced shit-disturber, complete with quickly improving lock-picking skills and quite a talent for
stealth.
- Subjects of keen interest: Current events, Night Life, and everyone else's business.
Tao Yang:
- Quickly budding talent for Basketball.
- Excels at mathematics.
- Subjects of keen interest: Biology (Genetics), Mythology and Occult Studies, History, and Physics
Background:
Tao Yin and Tao Yang lived a relatively ordinary life in their early childhood years. The brother and
sister were extremely close in the beginning. With only one year seperating them in age, Yang was pretty much the
sampler child when it came to things like daycares or pre-schools. He would be enrolled first, and if the
experience was satisfactory, his sister came the year later.
This worked great for them, especially since their father had ingrained somewhat of a 'protector'
mentality in Yang's mind, regarding his sister. From the moment he could understand what the concept was about,
he was always there for her. And there was only a single moment in their lives when that changed.
During a family vacation to a cabin near the mountains when they were about six and seven years old, they
were visiting a local historic temple. Yang had met one of his young friends there at the base of the steps. Yin
had just picked a flower in her brother's favorite color and tried to give it to him as a gift, but for the first
time, he turned her away to save face with his young friend. Heartbroken, she ran off. By the time they were
ready to go, their parents had already wandered away from that area, and Yang was too distracted by his friend to
notice where his sister had gone.
After realising their little girl was missing, Yang's parents were furious at him and sick with worry.
Police were called, searches were staged, but the girl was simply gone. For days they searched every inch of the
temple grounds that they were permitted to travel, even begged the groundskeepers, priests, and monks to search
the rest but all to no avail. One night was particularly rainy and Tao Yang had split off from his parents to
search the temple again. The clouds overhead made everything so very hard to see. By the time he'd noticed he'd
gotten lost, he was in parts of the temple he never saw before.
The next few minutes were like they came from a story book. He found his sister laying on the floor of a
quiet prayer room under the temple. While reachign to grab a lantern to better light the area to see if she was
okay, he knocked it over and fire spilled everywhere along one of the walls. A brilliant tapestry with golden
threaded depictions of a magnificent fiery fox went up in the blaze, but as it fell apart the fire itself leapt
from the tapestry in the shape of the fox spirit itself. Cowering by his sister, protecting her from this
creature as it circled around them like prey.
"She disturbed our sleep." said the spirit. "She was punished." it said as it circled again and again.
"You disturb us as well." added the spirit with a gnashing of it's fiery maw. "You shall be punished as
well. We will feast upon her!"
The boy leapt up and stood in between the beast and his sister, preventing it from getting any closer.
"You can't! She didn't mean it! I made her mad and she ran away! It's my fault!" he cried, pleading with the
beast.
"He takes her punishment upon himself..." said another voice behind him, wispy, more feminine than the
other. Another fox-like spirit, this time made if flickering blackness, almost identical to the one made of
nearly white hot fire but darker than the deepest blackness. "He is noble... ignorant of his misdeeds against
us..."
"I'm sorry I burned your wall rug! I'm sorry! Don't hurt her!" he pleaded again. The two spirits
continued to circle.
"You will take her burden...? Her spirit is fading, young one..."
"No! She can't go! Help her!" he cried, falling to his knees, splaying himself on the ground in reverance
of the spirits, begging for their help.
"... He acknowledges us... Yet his crimes against us... Unforgivable..." spoke the bright fire spirit.
"... She will not survive, boy..." the creature of darkness informed him. "Will you give yourself to save
her...?" it asked, mischief in it's voice.
"Yes yes! Take me! Save her!" he begged again, staying on the floor as he was.
They spoke no more. All he knew was blinding light and oppressive darkness for the next few moments,
overwhelming his senses, before he blacked out. The next thing he could remember was waking up in a hospital with
his parents looking concerned. He learned soon that the spirits had not in fact saved his sister like he begged.
Instead he was the only survivor in the middle of the room, resting on a floor mat styled like the Taoist Yin
Yang symbol, while the rest of the room was burned beyond repair. His parents heard his story, and despite
several attempts to take him to a specialist to see if his mind was damaged from the trauma, nothing was
conclusive. Eventually, he just gave up trying to explain.
Thinking that it was his fault, and that he was a mutant, his parents pulled every string they could
reach, and used every contact they had to find somewhere to take him so he could recover and control himself, but
could not find anything worth pursuing. Instead, they decided to simply leave. The stigma of having a child like
theirs did not do well in their community, nor any community they tried to move into. His father managed to pull
a few strings elsewhere and get them passage to America, where they started a new life. Eventually, they gained
full citizenship, immersed themselves in American culture to blend in, and never spoke of the incident again.
This was all fine and good, but Tao Yang hated growing up in a home that blamed him for the worst event
in their lives. Even if it was only a sullen look here, or a sad sigh there if they were reminded of their dear
departed Tao Yin, it was too much for him to take. He focused on his studies, delving into subjects like
Chemistry and Biology, but finding a real keen interest in Theology and the Occult on the side. After trying for
years to research what may have happened, he finally found himself a clue. Some tidbits of Korean folklore
involving fox spirits embodying the aspects of balance. Simply lore, but for him it hit too real.
Bringing this research home only made things worse. He was almost through with his first year of high
school and his parents forbid him to persue these wild dreams he had of proving that which they had tried so long
and hard to forget. He had gone his entire life without another incident, and they didn't want him to endanger
them all. They informed him that after high school they planned on sending him to a specialized school to teach
people like him to fit in with society. They also informed him that for the last year and a half he had been
emitting soft glowing light while he slept. The news was less of a shock than he had expected. He was a mutant,
and one that was fairly docile at that. He could live with this.
In the middle of his second year of high school everything changed. Something happened that threatened
his very existance. In the showers after a basketball practice his body began to let out violent spurts of light.
Everyone else around him went into a pants-on-head PANIC. By the time they had a META agent on site to handle the
situation, all that was left was a cowering teenage girl.
Weeks went by trying to explain what had happened, but it just kept happening again and again. Every day,
at dawn, he would wake up and turn into this girl. At night, he would turn back into himself. The rest of the
year was extremely awkward. Pretty much everyone attending school that year knew of the "guy who turned into a
girl", but poor Tao Yin, she didn't even know what had happened. Everyone was calling her by her brother's name.
All she knew was that she had to wait it out until someone told her what was going on. When that became too
tiresome for her, she simply stopped caring and skipped school to avoid the drama and stress of everyone
pointing, leering, jeering and harassing her. Tao Yang theorized that what the fox spirits had done, was fuse the
two of them together, making them one being. The 'why' was still a mystery.
Their last year was simply exhausting. Tao Yin had to do most of the footwork for her brother's classes,
but he had to do the work itself at night. Boring for her, exhausting for him. Frustrations ran high and more
than once they set each other up for some embarrassing situations, quickly learning to use and abuse their limited
power sets whenever they could. It didn't take long for both of them to come to terms, and settle on a brief
truce until something better could be figured out. No sense in ruining both lives because of something out of
their control.
It was WAY too much for their parents to handle. The return of their now-teenage daughter was met with
mixed emotions. Especially considering the fact that their two beloved children were now somehow sharing the same
body! They pulled the body-sharing siblings from school very early after that, and forced them to finish their
diploma through home courses. After acquiring that, they sent them off to the only available place they knew of.
The famed (or infamous?) Cobalt Hill Sanctum.
Criminal Record: Two counts of Trespassing, One count of shoplifting, and one count of disturbing the
peace. All for Tao Yin.
Quirks, Extras, Random Character Facts:
- While Tao Yin will take delight in making Tao Yang's life as difficult as possible, she claims to have
a verbal contract that binds her from "Ruining his life".
- Tao Yang also respects this contract, but keeps mental plans on how to turn a situation around should
his 'sister' break the terms of their agreement.
- Tao Yin loves to skate around on roller-blades while out and about. Tao Yang is terrible at keeping his
balance on the things, and prefers to drive around in his SUPER COOL '01 Pontiac Sunfire Sedan.
- Tao Yang is currently taking night-classes at a local Salem college, majoring in Biology with a focus
in Genetics. His minor is in Mythological Studies. Tao Yin finds all of that extremely fucking boring.